The European Union accused Chinese-founded online shopping giant Temu on Monday of breaking the bloc\u2019s digital rules by not \u201cproperly\u201d assessing the risks of illegal products.<\/p>\n
EU regulators believe Temu is not doing enough to protect European consumers from dangerous products and that it may not be acting sufficiently to mitigate risks to users.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvidence showed that there is a high risk for consumers in the EU to encounter illegal products on the platform,\u201d the European Commission said in its preliminary finding.<\/p>\n
It pointed to a mystery shopping exercise that found consumers were \u201cvery likely to find non-compliant products among the offer, such as baby toys and small electronics\u201d.<\/p>\n
Temu said only it would \u201ccontinue to cooperate fully with the commission\u201d.<\/p>\n
Wildly popular in the European Union despite only having entered the continent\u2019s market in 2023, Temu has 93.7 million average monthly active users in the 27-country bloc.<\/p>\n
The EU said Temu\u2019s October 2024 risk assessment was \u201cinaccurate and relying on general industry information rather than on specific details about its own marketplace\u201d.<\/p>\n
Temu is under investigation as part of a mammoth law known as the Digital Services Act (DSA) that forces the world\u2019s largest tech firms to do more to protect European consumers online and better police content online.<\/p>\n
Temu will now be able to respond to the EU regulators\u2019 findings and defend itself, but there is no time limit on how long an investigation may last.<\/p>\n
If confirmed to be in breach, the EU can slap a fine on Temu.<\/p>\n
Fines under the DSA can go as high as six percent of a company\u2019s total worldwide annual turnover and force it to make changes to address violations.<\/p>\n
Launched in October, the EU probe continues to investigate other suspected breaches including the use of addictive design features that could hurt users\u2019 physical and mental well-being and how Temu\u2019s systems recommend content and products.<\/p>\n
EU law under attack <\/p>\n
The DSA is part of the EU\u2019s reinforced legal weaponry to curb the excesses of Big Tech, with stricter rules for the world\u2019s biggest platforms.<\/p>\n
It has faced criticism from the US administration under President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
The Republican-dominated judiciary committee of the US House of Representatives described the DSA in a scathing report as a \u201cforeign censorship threat\u201d on Friday.<\/p>\n
Staunch President Donald Trump ally Jim Jordan, committee chair, met EU tech sovereignty chief Henna Virkkunen in Brussels as part of a bipartisan delegation on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a constructive discussion on how to promote digital innovation, AI and regulate this field smartly,\u201d she said on X after the meeting.<\/p>\n
There are currently other DSA probes into Chinese online retailer AliExpress, social media platforms Facebook and Instagram and X as well as TikTok.<\/p>\n
The EU also wants to crack down on cheap packages that flood into the bloc each year, with a proposal under discussion for a two-euro flat fee per parcel.<\/p>\n
Last year, 4.6 billion such packages entered the EU \u2014 more than 145 per second \u2014 with 91 percent originating in China. The EU expects the numbers to increase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European Union accused Chinese-founded online shopping giant Temu on Monday of breaking the bloc\u2019s digital rules by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[1394,1395,19506,84585,2000,299,5187,2557,1699,1123,27002,111284,811,246],"class_list":["post-301061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-big-tech","tag-china","tag-consumer-protection","tag-digital-security","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-commission","tag-european-union","tag-featured","tag-londonwires","tag-regulators","tag-security","tag-shopping"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114936274319388320","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}